Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A cellular wireless network may include a number of base stations that radiate to define wireless coverage areas, such as cells and cell sectors, in which user equipment devices (UEs) such as cell phones, tablet computers, tracking devices, embedded wireless modules, and other wirelessly equipped communication devices, can operate. In turn, each base station may be coupled with network infrastructure that provides connectivity with one or more transport networks, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and/or a packet-switched network such as the Internet for instance. With this arrangement, a UE within coverage of the network may engage in air interface communication with a base station and may thereby communicate via the base station with various remote network entities or with other UEs.
In an example arrangement, a base station may manage a neighbor list that includes information relating to one or more other neighboring base stations that are arranged to define one or more coverage areas neighboring a coverage area of the base station. Generally, the neighbor list includes information that identifies the neighboring base stations and connectivity information for establishing communications with the neighboring base stations.
In the example arrangement, the base station may utilize the information in the neighbor list to initiate a handover of the connectivity between the one or more UEs and the network. For instance, the one or more UEs may report a signal strength of a neighboring base station that is greater than a corresponding signal strength of the base station. In this instance, the base station may establish communication with the neighboring base station based on the information in the neighbor list to initiate the handover of the connectivity from the base station to the neighboring base station.
The neighbor list may be automatically or periodically updated based on dynamic conditions of the cellular wireless network. By way of example, the base station may perform an automatic neighbor relation (ANR) function to detect and add new neighbors to the neighbor list and to remove outdated neighbors from the neighbor list. For instance, the base station may receive reports from one or more of the UEs within wireless coverage of the base station indicating detection of one or more particular base stations by the one or more UEs. Further, the base station may determine that the one or more particular base stations are not included in the neighbor list, and may engage in signaling with the one or more UEs to obtain information relating to the particular base stations for inclusion in the neighbor list. In practice, the base station may also engage in signaling with a server in the cellular wireless network to obtain additional information relating to the particular base stations for inclusion in the neighbor list.
Changes to the neighbor list by the base station may involve the base station engaging in signaling with the one or more UEs, and the one or more UEs engaging in signaling with the particular neighboring base stations. Unfortunately, however, the associated signaling traffic may cause a lag in the handover of the connectivity from the base station to the neighboring base station. Additionally, the signaling traffic may drain power from the one or more UEs.